Art-Sheep Features: Nathan James’ Dark Pop Art

London-based artist Nathan James‘ world is a world where everything works perfectly wrong. His surreal scenes and decomposed characters are expressed in a a macabre, yet humorous way, while references to sexual behavior and abuse are intensely felt.

Whether there are faces are melting, or bizarre things happening, James’ paintings form a very strange, mysterious atmosphere, that despite its bright colors is actually pretty dark. According to his artist statement, his current lines of works are “based on the idea of Pessimist Pop, a reaction to the highly-polished, busy, celebratory work of Koons, Murakami et al, James subverts modern life’s most aspirational images, and while dealing in the same sort of bold shapes and cultural iconography, he uses them to take a grimly comic, darkly humorous look at contemporary life. Painting in oil (often making his own paints) onto canvas or linen, James takes images of Americana, advertising, pin-ups, Hollywood and traditional beauty and injects them with his own feelings towards the characters and the scenes they inhabit.”